Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

creativity

The Quantity/Quality Conundrum

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Measure Of Success

Let’s say there’s a sales guy, working in a sales function in a sales-driven organization.

His company was acquired by a group of investors who are systematically changing the way business is being done. They have metrics for everything and statistics drive every decision.

Our sales guy has been the top producer for many years. He has deep customer relationships and generates significant repeat business.

But you can’t benchmark relationships, so the powers that be decide he must have lucked into a rich sales territory and proceed to carve it up to spread the wealth. They parcel his clients out to the rest of the sales team, leaving our sales guy with a severely diminished book.

Oh, and a mandate to make 35 calls each day.

Off the record, his boss says that it doesn’t matter if the calls are to qualified prospects or not – all the bean counters want to know is that the calls are being made because they have forms to be filled out.

Six months go by.

Sales are way off.

Repeat business is non-existent.

And our sales guy has found another job.

Because he knows that his strongest suit – his true superpower – is the ability to create relationships, and the bean counters who value quantity over quality simply don’t get it.

He knows that he can make one call and generate as much business in fifteen minutes as two other guys could get in a week. How? Because his clients know him, like him and have years of experience working with him – they trust him.

Some of his customers like him better than they like his product – what he sells is less important than how he sells to them. Which is why the guy is going to be successful wherever he goes.

If I were in charge of a sales organization, I’d hire a hundred people with the ability to generate referral business rather than hire a thousand robo-callers.

Because quality always wins out over quantity.

But maybe that’s just me.

Today it seems that so many organizations want their people to be as uniform and interchangeable as widgets.

As if one sales guy is absolutely equal to another sales guy.

That one teacher is as good as any other teacher.

That a 60-year-old surgeon who’s done a thousand procedures is absolutely equivalent to a 30-year-old surgeon who’s so desperate for business that she’s willing to deeply discount her fee to get people in the door.

I don’t think so.

Sure, it’s comforting to think that if you check off all the boxes then you’re less likely to fail. Does our health plan provide access to a surgeon? Check  – yes. The question so few ask: Is that surgeon any good?

Quantity is: We have a 20-person sales team making 35 cold calls every day. Quality is: Are they talking to the right people? Are they taking time to build relationships? To build trust?

There’s not a box to check next to those quality questions because they’re rarely being asked.

It’s likely that you have quantity/quality decisions to make every day in your own life. And all I ask is that you keep a few things in mind:

It’s not the number of brownies you make that’s important, especially if they taste awful. Make good, quality brownies and let that be enough.

It’s not the number of bills you have in your wallet, especially if they are all ones. If you want to sit down, it’s better to have five $100 bills in your back pocket than 250 singles.

It’s not important that you have a whole lot of friends, especially if you have no one to call for help in the middle of the night.

When it comes down to it, real success comes from the things that cannot be quantified – connection, relationship, kindness, appreciation, trust.

I don’t know about you, but I want more of those quality things in my life and work, and I’m consciously working on them every day.

I really like the idea of being un-metric-ifiable.

 

Pay Attention To Taylor Swift. Really.

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taylor-swift-vance-joyA friend reached out this week to ask if I’d ever read Viktor Frankl’s classic book Man’s Search For Meaning. I told her I had, it remains one of the most important books in my life and it’s formed much of my approach to living. We had a sparkling dialogue about it (I just love sparkling dialogues, don’t you?) and the next day I pulled my copy off the shelf and settled in for a re-read.

Frankl, a leading psychiatrist and thinker, was imprisoned in Auschwitz and other camps during World War II. Coming from that horrific experience, Frankl gained deep understanding of how people under tremendous physical, emotional and spiritual pressure react. It became his life’s work. In short, Frankl believed that people can endure nearly anything if they are deeply connected to something bigger than themselves, or are doing something in service to others.

This is why you might stay in a job you hate – it provides the income you need to give your children a great education. Or, it allows you to care for your aging parents. It might give you the space to write poetry, or raise rescue animals.

You do what you do – even if it’s hard – when you feel you’re serving a bigger purpose.

In the re-read, a key passage from Frankl’s preface stood out to me:

“Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

And that’s when I realized just how powerful Taylor Swift is.

You see, I recently saw Taylor sing on a British TV show called The Live Lounge. Now, the premise of the show is this: famous musicians sing songs that aren’t theirs. They cover other popular songs – a really fun concept.

So, Taylor could have chosen any song. She could have phoned it in – I mean, she’s an international superstar! She could have been silly or jaded or intent on preserving her famousness and make a boring choice.

But she didn’t.

From what I could see when I watched the clip, Taylor chose to sing a song that gave her joy, that she could be creative with.

She covered Vance Joy’s great song “Riptide.” Here’s the link: BBC Radio

If you watch it, you’ll see that at certain points Taylor is amused with herself as she sings certain words. She lingers on phrases. She doesn’t just cover the song – she interprets it.

And that’s when I realized that Taylor Swift is deeply, powerfully connected to her “why”. And it doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with seeking fame.

Her why, in my opinion? She’s a musician. Plain and simple.

I am sure she faces a lot of pressure to be commercial and crank out hit after hit. There are probably people who suggest she phone it in and collect the cash. I’ll bet she has plenty of haters.

But I’ll also bet that despite all of that pressure, she feels compelled – yes, compelled – to do what she’s doing. And to do it her own way.

She’d do it even if she wasn’t famous.

Which, according to Frankl, is precisely why she’s famous.

Now to you. And to me. What can we learn here?

I think it’s this: whether you know it or not, whether you’re currently connected to it or not, you’re here to create something. You’re here to make meaning with your life – to do good – in service of something larger. The more you do it, the happier you’ll be. The more you do it, the more successful you’ll be.

Try as you might, it doesn’t work to only pursue fame – you live fully when you fully pursue meaning. 

Serve your creativity – whatever it looks like for you – and in so doing, you will succeed. It might be a long path, and the success may look really different than you imagined, you might even fail a time or two. But if you are deeply in touch with your “why”, you’ll get there.

And, if you’re at a place in your life where you feel disconnected, or things seem futile, or you don’t even know why you wake up in the morning – do yourself a favor.

Read Frankl.

 [photo credit: Time]

The Wolf Of Wall Street’s Opposite

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Sometimes it seems the advice we’re given for successful living is to wake every day on fire, with the intention of grabbing life by the throat and shaking it until its head rattles.

wolf_wall_street2-620x412

We’re to be hard-charging, forward-leaning and suck the marrow from the bones of our day. We finally get to declare victory when the sun sets over the crumpled, inferior bodies of our vanquished opponents. We stand then – like mighty Hercules – with a stiff drink in our hands, the world at our feet and big money to burn.

We are all to be Wolves of Wall Street, I gather.

But, you know something? I’m not a wolf, I’m a human. And I work on a road, not a street. And usually all I vanquish in any given day is trouble of my own making.

Yes, as unfashionable as it may be, I will admit that there are some days when I wake with no fire in my belly to conquer any damn thing out there in the world.

OK, many days.

The truth is that at the end of any given day, I’m happy to have simply conquered myself.

Don’t let me mislead you – I like winning. I am actually quite experienced with winning. Winning is a very good thing, I like it very much and it happens for me quite frequently.

Yet, surprisingly, I have found that I win more when I try less. Which is probably the opposite of everything I ever was told about How To Do It.

What I’ve learned is that when I bear down and push, success stays stuck. When I let up and release, success is born.

Sure, sometimes success surprises with an instant, unexpected appearance. Isn’t it fun when that happens? But, day in and day out, I’ve found that success is mostly a waiting game.

Waiting, as you know, is not the sexiest thing ever. Nor does it provoke wolf-like envy.

“Whatcha up to, Michele?”

“Oh, I’m just sitting here doing my thing and figuring it will work someday or I’ll change it and most likely that’ll work. I’m cool with it either way.”

[Honey, even Jennifer Lawrence couldn’t make those lines compelling.]

Here’s the thing: Success sneaks up when I simply show up every day, and do what needs doing. And find some fun in the process.

It’s the practice of planting seeds daily with the hopeful optimism that someday, some of them will thrive and grow. And the intention that the someday-harvest will be sweet.

It’s knowing I don’t have to eat what I kill to be the kind of person I want to be.

It’s the awareness that I can just wake up, bring my best self to the day and let the rest take care of itself. More than likely, quite successfully.

When you think about it, you probably know this is true for you, too. When you look at times in your life when great things have happened, I’ll bet you were loose, engaged and happy.

Which may not be the way you are right now. You might be stressed, and rather wolfish. But that’s not who you are when you do your best work, is it?

This week, why not change it up a little? Why not wake up, show up, plant some seeds and then…see what happens?

 

 [photo: Paramount Pictures]

 

The Lucky Penny

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1920s penny

 

It showed up in my change one day. A worn, deeply brown penny. I knew it was old because it had wheat sheaves on the reverse the way old pennies do.

I put on my reading glasses and tilted it to the light so I could read the date.

1920.

Nineteen twenty.

I couldn’t believe it. Minted ninety-three years ago, this little geriatric penny was still in circulation. And it got me wondering…

Who in this coin’s long life have held it in their hands? What were their stories?

Where could it have possibly traveled?

As a shiny penny in 1920 maybe it got saved up with eight other pennies to buy a loaf of bread for a family who just arrived from Europe.

I’ll bet that once or twice it was thrown by pining lovers, eyes closed, hearts hoping, into a wishing well.

An excited child used it to buy a red licorice whip.

In the Depression, it bought a red apple on the street.

It paid the rent for a struggling experimental painter in Manhattan.

A happy father gave it to his little son, saying with a twinkle, “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

And there was the soldier who carried it at D-Day because 1920 was his birth year – he rubbed it constantly with his thumb for luck as the landing craft neared the beach.

In Iowa, a boy put it in a jar with every other coin he could earn until he had enough to buy his first balsa airplane kit.

A girl in Brooklyn used it to buy a real book of her own.

It started a single mom’s college fund.

A Greek deli owner in Cincinnati put it in the till for the first gyro he ever sold.

It spent a few years in the collection of a bookish child, who learned about history by holding it in her hands.

Year after year, person after person, this little coin moved from place to place doing what it was designed to do – be a tool for people to realize their dreams.

And Abraham Lincoln’s profile became softer and shinier from all that handling, and the copper shine disappeared. The relative value of the coin has diminished.

No one could buy much with it today.

But the printed words on it are still strong, and bold. Words like: Liberty. Unum. America. Trust. God.

Yes, this little penny is still here. And now in it rests gently in my care.

I think we’re both extraordinarily lucky.

 

 

“You’re Not Supposed To Have Ideas”

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light bulb idea

 

When I was in high school, I turned in the draft of a paper for some assignment or other. The teacher used one word repeatedly – written in blood-red ballpoint ink – “Citation?”

I asked her what she meant and she said, “You need to cite where you got these ideas, Michele.” To which I replied, “They’re my own ideas.”

She looked at me glaringly and said, “You’re not supposed to have ideas.”

As if every scholar who’s come down the pike for the last twenty-four hundred years is merely riffing on Plato.

If my memory is correct, I went ahead and gave the teacher what she wanted but have stubbornly and subversively continued to have my own ideas.

And it’s funny. I see this “you’re not supposed to have ideas” idea play out today in a million different ways.

On Facebook, for instance, there are scads of people who endlessly post inspiring quotes by famous people but nary a peep of their own thoughts. Now, I love me an inspirational quote as much as the next gal, but why do we invest the wisdom of Snoop Dog, er, I mean, Snoop Lion, with more meaning than something from our own heart?

This happens in real life, too, when the CEO is surrounded by Yes-men and Yes-women who play Whac-A-Mole with their peers only to produce banal, safe ideas which never move the dial or solve the real problem.

Oh, I understand the reluctance to speak up and say something. It’s hard to claim your own knowing. Especially for those of us who worry what other people will think – what if we say something that’s wrong? Or stupid? Or shows our innate lack of any intelligence, experience or capability? What if they find out we’re really an impostor and don’t know what the hell we’re doing?

So we keep our heads down, our mouths shut and post other people’s words.

You know exactly what I’m talking about.

Yet, over time, it gets harder and harder to be a blank slate. In Malcolm Gladwell’s terrific book Blink (hey, I just made a citation!), he suggests that based on sheer dint of having lived, you have expertise. And your knowledge and insight and instinct are almost always correct.

But owning our innate smarts and the viewpoint our own life has afforded… well, that is pretty hard to do. Maybe it smacks of arrogance, or is – using a phrase we threw around in high school – conceited to say, “Hey, I know this.”

Tell you what, though – that’s precisely what I want my brain surgeon to say someday when he opens up my noggin during surgery:  “Hey, I really know this.” That’s my kind of doc.

Yes, it takes bravery and belief in one’s own competence to say what you think. But it also takes the willingness to be vulnerable and open. Because knowing that what you’re offering is merely your perspective – standing in that place of claiming while at the same time recognizing someone else’s equal and valid right to share their own perspective, and then taking that information onboard and deciding which of it is true for you… that takes courage.

In her book (another citation!) Daring Greatly, writer Brene Brown talks about the courage it takes to live wholeheartedly and vulnerably while at the same time taking the risk to allow yourself to be known for who you are, warts and all. Brown says that it’s only by doing so that you can be fully yourself, and be fully loved in return.

And we all want to be loved, don’t we?

So, let me leave you with the universal truth Miley Cyrus shares in the neo-classic, existential anthem (see, Teacher? I can write citations) “We Can’t Stop”:

“To my home girls here with the big butts

Shaking it like we at a strip club

Remember only God can judge ya

Forget the haters

Cause somebody loves ya.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

Really Can’t Wait

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There’s often a very rational, reasonable cycle people like me suggest to people like you:

Dream it ->Vision it -> Feel it -> Break it down into doable chunks ->Start doing those chunks, one by one by one -> Steadily, slowly, carefully, collect data along the way and adjust your actions or your dreams accordingly.

Jeez, that sounds deathly boring when I write it out like that. And time-consuming. And dull.

Watching-paint-dry slow, even.

When I see people who are stuck or struggling, even though they’re doing everything they should and following the “process” to a T, there’s something vital missing: they don’t really know why they’re doing it.

Motivation is the “why” you want to do a thing – like get a job, or get a contract, or get a client. Why write a book, or make a film? Why create something? Why do it?

You say: “Because I paid all this money for the degree, so I guess I should…” Or, “What would people say if I wasn’t a doctor/lawyer/Indian Chief after all this time?” Or maybe your answer is more like: “Everyone’s doing it – maybe that’s my ticket to Easy Street at last.”

[And you wonder why you’re stuck and nothing’s happening.]

You’re stuck because those things aren’t truly motivating – they’re all about fear. And fear will stop you in your tracks.

Most of the time, fear whispers “Wait. Slow down. Stop.” while motivation shouts, “Go. Do. Don’t wait. Can’t wait.”

That’s it, right there. The thing I’ve seen in the most successful people I’ve ever known:

The spirit of can’t wait.

In many forms, can’t wait is extremely motivating. There’s the excited, toes-curled-up kind of “can’t wait!” or the seize-the-moment, the-time-is-now “can’t wait.” And there’s also the compelling, creative, “this idea cannot wait inside me – it must come out.”

If you’re dawdling, and can’t seem to make anything happen even though you’ve dreamed and visioned and felt it in your body and broken it down into manageable steps, maybe… maybe take a step back, and ask yourself “where’s my can’t wait on this thing?”

If you answer, “can’t find it”, then stop banging your head against the wall and look for something else that feels exciting, timely and compelling.

And if your answer is, “It can wait” then take a break and focus on other things that cannot wait. It’s likely that you have something else going on in your life which needs your full attention.

But if you answer, “Yep. I cannot wait to get this going! The time is now! I have to!” – guess what?

You will. And nothing – nothing, not even fear – will hold you back.

Stop waiting. Know your why. Start your doing.

It really can’t wait.

 

What If vs. What If

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The absolutely best, most creative question ever asked is:  “What if?”

This little question has generated countless books, movies and plays.  What if a Danish prince discovers that his mother’s new husband is his father’s murderer?  What if a young girl falls down a rabbit hole and finds another world?  What if boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then boy finds girl again?

“What if?” has also spawned greatness in other ways.  Like peach salsa.  Like penicillin.  Like new roses. Like Impressionist paintings. Like iPads.

And yet at the very same time “what if?” is our biggest stumbling block to success.

“What if I make a mistake?”

“What if I don’t like it?”

“What if it’s not really possible?”

“What if I’m wrong?”

The stewing and fretting so many of us devote to the potentiality of every single possible “what if?” scenario keeps us completely stuck.

“What if?” we ask.  “What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if?”

Exhausting.

Yet the irony is, like the proverbial two-edged sword, it’s only by asking “what if?” that we can be free to move forward.

What if you don’t like it?  Well, what if you do?  You will never know until you try, so why not just try?

What if you fail?  Well, have you failed before?  Bet you have. I sure have – recently.  And, look: you and I are still above ground and breathing, so that means we are probably stronger and more resilient than we give ourselves credit for.  Failure proves it.

What if it’s not really possible?  Or if you’re wrong?  Well, then, at least you have collected data which shows you what’s not going to work.  Which only makes it more possible for you to figure out what will work.

Pollyanna-ish?  Unrealistic?  Are you thinking that perhaps I don’t understand the stakes involved?  How pressured your situation is?  How overwhelmed you are?

Oh, I understand quite well.  Believe me.  

I hear it every day. And lived it myself.

But there’s one thing I know.  You can make it easier on yourself by simply choosing to use the creative “what if?” rather than the limiting “what if?”

That’s all.  Once choice.  One little choice to come at your overwhelm and pressure and deadlines and stuff from a slightly different angle.

And create something wonderful.

 

Trial & No Error

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I happen to love Wednesdays. Once upon a time, “Wednesday” meant “25 cent beer night at Phi Kap’s” – a fond memory, believe me.  But now, in the fullness of time, Wednesdays no longer equate to fraternity party excess.

[Well, not that often.]

Wednesdays have become the day when I work with members of The Club, my affordable coaching program.  Each Wednesday, members get a sharp, focused one-on-one 20 minute coaching session – and, boy, do we get work done.  It’s wonderful.  And during the course of last week’s laser coaching appointments, I realized that there was a common theme emerging.  A theme around perfectionism.

It seems that many of us want to be absolutely perfect right out of the gate.

The website copy must be perfect.

The presentation must be flawless.

The vacation must be life-changing.

The relationship must be relentlessly connected, joyful, energizing and sexy.

No room for errors, mistakes, illness or personal preferences (especially those of other people).  Not enough time. The stakes are way too high. Which, of course, made me write myself a note: “What ever happened to trial and error?”

Trial and error is a beautiful thing! Trial and error opens the mind – why the result could be anything!  I could be surprised.  Elated! I could be disappointed, sure – but, regardless, I will absolutely learn something fascinating. Something that will make my next try more successful.

That’s the reason trial and error underlies the scientific process.  Frankly, I am thrilled that some guys kept looking at blue mold on bread and working it, working it, until there was a successful outcome – penicillin.

I am happy that the guy who goofed up making a new glue decided to see what it would do on paper before the threw the whole batch into the trash.  What would you do without Post-It Notes?

It pleases me to think that right now, out there somewhere, someone is testing what blueberries and spinach would taste like in salsa. Talk about creativity!

Perfectionism absolutely kills this kind of creativity.

Perfectionism prevents exploring – “what if it’s the wrong direction! What happens then? What if I make a mistake? Better just stick to the tried and true. Must not fail.” So to protect yourself against failure, you squash your curiosity, and creativity falls aside. And you learn nothing.

Because you only discover when you explore.

Not to mention the waiting. Good golly, Miss Molly, but perfectionism often requires waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting. So many people wait until the perfect pops out, fully developed and well-formed. Indisputably astounding. Making observers say, “Wow!”

This, darlings, is a happy dream. A happy dream which, I will admit, has never happened to me or anyone I know in real life. The best stuff has come with focus, over time, with smart trial and plenty of errors.

Perhaps people seek perfection as an insurance policy so they can’t be told they’re wrong when they put their stuff out there.

But I have better insurance: When I’m using trial and error, I’m not “wrong” – I’m just not “right”… yet.

I am, however, happily on the road bound there. Doing stuff. Creating. Filing errors under “learning” so my next attempt will be even better.